Da Nang, Vietnam

All the staff at Danang Backpackers Hostel.

Dang Says:Vietnam could not have been more of a treat to visit than it was, the big bag of trepidation that we had brought with us from London to Hong Kong. The trepidation had virtually melted away what with keeping busy in Hong Kong and meeting up with some old friends so that on our flight to Hanoi we were almost as free and as light as those clouds we watched from the plane. By the time we reached Da Nang however we had to add another notion to our new found freedom that we had been going through a very intimate experience with the Vietnamese people. The country had completely and utterly grown on us. All this was never more noticeable than with the welcome we received at The Da Nang Backpackers Hostel. Win the young guy who runs the Hostel on seeing how tired I was beckoned me in with a"Come in old man"I thought this was a very genuine and warm expression.In Da Nang they have the lovely Hàn River which I found just as stimulating and inspirational for writing as well as making plans and stuff as the Hoàn Kiém lake in Hanoi. The true highlight of the Han River is the Dragon Bridge, there is a Dragon sculpted the whole length of a bridge, and on a Saturday and Sunday night if you are at the Bridge on the dot of 21.00hrs this Dragon blows fire. Only on these nights and only once at 21.00hrs. But still very amusing!Another part of our fun in Da Nang was the newly opened Baskin Robbins. Baskin Robbins is a great place to go for Ice Cream but it was the welcome we received from both staff and customers alike that made this place so special. Be warned though go there on a Friday or Saturday evening and expect to be waiting in a long queue for the Vietnamese in Da Nang are mad about their very own Baskin Robbins, it had actually only been open a month when we arrived so that might explain it that and the great ice cream of course.The Da Nang Backpackers Hostel was like a home from home for us, along with our morning ritual of Coffee at the Long Cafe, filled to bursting point with locals. I really looked forward to sitting down and having Coffee with the locals every day. There were the trips to the Cinema with Thu and there where the meals that the boss lady Jolie prepared for us. Traditional Vietnamese food, truly amazing. These are memories of togetherness that Blast and I will remember for a very long time. We ended our stay in Da Nang all gathered down by the Hàn River watching a Fireworks Competition which was held over a public holiday, a really amazing night. We may have spent two and a half hours sitting on the ground, standing up every time to watch and cheer the Fireworks displays but we were surrounded by thousands of locals who seemed to very much enjoy us all being there. There was a father with his daughter who had this beautiful smile, while her Dad took time to try and teach two of our friends how to play Chinese Chess. We all sat around drinking beer and I shared out some cakes. The Vietnamese and the people of Da Nang have earned a place in our hearts which will never be replaced.

A further view of the Hostel from the outside.

The whole gang at The International Fireworks Competition.

Blast says:When we arrived in Da Nang it was a strange experience, we had been told a variety of things, the most modern city in Vietnam, a great beach and so on. We weren't ready for the beach life just yet and the modern part made this city sound a little plastic and soulless but that couldn't be further from the truth. This town has a lot of soul and the hostel we were staying in was so nice, the boss Jolie, actually said they never wanted us to leave and we when the time come felt heart wrenched that we had to leave. It felt like home and it wasn't just Jolie all the staff made us feel that way. I can only think of one other place like it and that was The Travellers Moon Lodge in Kuala Lumpur, we stayed there in 1992 and it was very hard to leave too.

We arrived in Da Nang late in the evening coming from Hue via Sleeper Bus, not the most comfortable experience and we had already reserved this place at a hotel by the beach. We had thought maybe it'd be cool hanging out by the beach but we were dead wrong, the hotel was horrible, mosquitoes were flying around everywhere, the evening staff were just shy of being downright rude, the morning staff were little better, the location was totally desolate, just open fields, and building sites and to top it off the beds were like sleeping on planks of wood. We had booked for three days but we were out of there the next morning.

A quick Google gave me Da Nang Backpackers Hostel and we headed away from the beach, far away from the beach and into the welcoming arms of Da Nang Backpackers Hostel. I'm not joking when I say this they were a welcome port in a storm. We were completely fried when we showed up and Win the Manager even took time to crack a joke with Dang, which he'll tell you about but that joke and that smiling face made us 100% sure we'd picked the right place and we had as the days ahead would prove.

Jolie treated us to dinner on more than a few occasions, they looked out for us and they did so many other lovely things too. Thu gets a special mention, she was only 19 and she stepped forward on the first day and asked us if we wanted to go and have some special Vietnamese treats with her, she thought about it for a bit and then said it's only for teenagers though, we're not teenagers we're 48 and 52 respectively but we went anyway and it was really nice, some sort of rice paper noodles with a sauce and dried liver and something else I can't describe. Not a fan of liver but it was still nice. We were friends from that first day and we went to the movies twice, once to see Run All Night with Liam Neeson and another time to see The Avengers Age Of Ultron. Those were good times.

We left just after the public holiday in April and a Fireworks Competition, we had an amazing night down on the Hàn River, with so many people and a bunch of new friends from all over the world. I'll share more about this story in one of my upcoming stories. Suffice to say Da Nang Backpackers Hostel and Da Nang itself stole our hearts and that's why it gets a special mention here.

The picture above was taken by our lovely Hanna.

And last but by no means least the address of said Hostel:Danang Backpackers Hostel26 Quang Trung StreetVery near Han RiverDa NangVietnamAnd a link to their website: